Although there have been many advances in the cable television (CATV) industry, the cable industry is still in its infancy. Generally, all of the cable programming originates at the headend or headend server. The headend receives programming information from a variety of sources. For example, there may be a satellite dish bar, antennas, in addition to landlines, all connected to the headend as programming sources.
The headend takes all of this television programming data, arranges the information within the available bandwidth, and sends the signal out to a plurality of hubs. The signal continues to branch out, possibly through nodes in the neighborhood, and eventually reaches a large group of end users. In traditional architectures, many one-way amplifiers are used between the headend and the destinations (business/residence).
Because the cable industry is a rapidly growing industry, it is desired by many cable operators to upgrade their network to a hybrid fiber coax (HFC) network. An HFC network employs both fiber and coax. Fiber is the network backbone, with optoelectric conversion taking place somewhere between the headend and the destination, with the last leg of the signal path being over coax. The HFC network allows a cable company to utilize much of its coax that already exists within the neighborhood, while providing the advantages of fiber from the headend to the neighborhood, in a fiber-to-the-neighborhood (FTTN) arrangement. Accordingly, the many amplifiers that were needed along the coax between the headend and the neighborhood are no longer needed when fiber is employed, and the only amplifiers that remain are in the last leg which is still carried by coax.
Further, in addition to upgrading the distribution medium, cable operators have started to provide data services. Because the network was originally designed for downstream transmissions only, some cable companies require the upstream communication to take place along a phone line, while the cable network is used for downstream signals only. Other cable companies have used various techniques to allow upstream transmissions over the cable network.
In addition to upgrading the network and providing new services such as data services, the end customers desire greater functionality than that provided by the traditional television signal distribution from the headend. As such, some cable companies have attempted to make television programming available to the end customer upon request. For example, pay-per-view channels are often provided by the cable company. That is, a particular movie may begin at several different times staggered throughout the evening, so that a customer may order the movie (pay for the viewing) and not have to wait more than maybe half an hour before the next broadcast of the movie begins. Pay-per-view services, since their beginning several years ago, have become quite popular.
On the customer's side, there is a demand for a device that has more advanced capabilities than a traditional video cassette recorder (VCR). That is, although the VCR has found a place in many homes, many customers do not like the hassle of programming their VCR each time they would like a show recorded. In response to this customer need, some companies have started to introduce smart recorders. A smart recorder has some ability to download a programming guide over, for example, an analog phone line, and then automatically record several hours of programming based on pre-programmed customer preferences that are entered into the device by the customer. As such, the device attempts to record programming that the end customer prefers, without requiring the customer to repeatedly program the device other than initially setting his or her preferences in the memory of the device.
Although these smart recorders are providing a very useful service to the end customer that is dissatisfied with traditional cable broadcasting methods and existing video cassette recorder (VCR) technologies, these devices are still very expensive. With the expense of a single unit, the aggregate expense associated with providing these devices to an entire neighborhood or perhaps an entire area served by a headend is undesirably very costly. For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for a broadcasting technique that provides enhanced capabilities at the customer end, while providing the economy of scale and eliminating expensive requirements for the customer.